Prosecution Data: Capitol Siege of January 6, 2021
Latest update: January 17, 2021
Original post: January 14, 2021
On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol building was breached by demonstrators as part of an attempt by supporters of President Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Over one hundred law enforcement officers and an unknown number of demonstrators were injured, and four demonstrators and one police officer were killed.
Just as we did during the George Floyd Uprising/Summer 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, we have worked to quickly track and investigate these cases, sharing the data transparently with journalists, policy makers, legal scholars and other academics, and social movement activists. In the immediate days after the Capitol attack, tPP fielded numerous calls from journalists and other investigators seeking this data and we are pleased to share this information with the public.
In looking at our data, some may ask, ‘Why does the data set contain counter-protestor (i.e., anti-fascist, Black Lives Matter) crimes mixed in with those from the attack on the Capitol building?’ Simply put, we seek to track all manners of political violence, regardless of ideology. Cases are eventually measured and coded on the basis of a defendants’ motive, ideology, methods, etc., but in establishing these cases for preliminary tracking, we are simply asserting that the crimes have:
- a.) a socio-political motive, and/or,
- b.) the federal government has labeled the crime ‘protest-related,’ ‘related to the civil disturbance,’ or through the use of other language which links the crime to the Capitol siege.
We will continue to add, investigate, and validate cases as they are released, and for now:
You can download the spreadsheet of 155 cases here
(listing updated 01/17/21 @ 11:04pm EST)
We will continue to update this list as information becomes available. This data is incomplete as details are still unfolding, but we have chosen to provide it for others to build upon. Many cases remain sealed and as a consequence, some early coding may change when complaints and court dockets are reviewed.
This information is free to use, but please credit the Prosecution Project | tPP Twitter.
If you have further questions about the data, or would like more information on the cases, their inclusion criteria, or to speak to a member of our team, get in touch.
Tracking federal cases related to Summer protests, riots, & uprisings
Latest update: December 22, 2020
Original post: July 1, 2020
Since the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 by Minneapolis police and the resulting waves of protests nationwide, tPP has fielded many requests to help provide a count of resulting felony cases. The early summer protests, riots, and sporadic uprisings resulted in over 10,000 arrests nationwide. The FBI later expanded that number to more than 13,600 (as of June 6, 2020). We have spoken with journalists, academic researchers, attorneys, community and prisoner support organizations, and many others.
tPP is focused on tracking felony cases of socio-political crime and violence, so many of these arrests likely fall within our project’s inclusion criteria. tPP tracks all types of ideological motives to study political violence. In this case, while the majority of cases are of demonstrators, some represent violence directed at demonstrators, or seemingly unrelated crimes described by State authorities (e.g., the DOJ, ATF) as ‘protest-related.’ Some of these cases will likely be excluded from our data set, but while they develop, we will continue to follow them. For example, we are including several federal cases where defendants are charged with only misdemeanors. Although this will disqualify them for later inclusion in the tPP dataset, we are including them to currently to assist those trying to track federal prosecutions.
Some have asked, ‘Why does the data set contain far-right crimes mixed in with those from demonstrators?’ Simply put, we seek to track all manners of political violence, regardless of ideology. Cases are eventually measured and coded on the basis of a defendants’ motive, ideology, etc., but in establishing these cases for preliminary tracking, we are simply asserting that the crimes have:
- a.) a socio-political motive, and/or,
- b.) the federal government has labeled the crime ‘protest-related,’ ‘related to the civil disturbance,’ ‘riot cases, (see below)’ or through the use of other language which links the crime to the protests.
Many of these cases were sourced from a series of releases provided by the DOJ and made available to tPP. Cases which qualify for inclusion will be evaluated by coding teams and completed for 50 variables, but in the mean time, we are sharing a partial data table of the federal arrests we are tracking.
You can download the spreadsheet of 347 federal cases here
(listing updated 12/22/20 @ 11:30pm EST)
Note: Some cases remain sealed and as a consequence, some early coding may change when complaints and court dockets are reviewed.
We will continue to update this list as information becomes available. This data is incomplete but provided for others to build upon.
This information is free to use but please credit the Prosecution Project | tPP Twitter. If you have further questions about the data, or would like more information on the cases, their inclusion criteria, etc., get in touch.